A high volume production facility has multiple equipment capable of performing the same process step in different production lines. Then, manufacturing lots can move from a current production line into the queue of a different production line for performance of the next process step. In the event that a manufacturing lot is moved from a current production line to the queue of a different production line for the next process step, the event is referred to as, a manufacturing lot backup from current equipment to a different equipment.
Before backup would occur, factory personnel would perform a number of backup preparation steps. The process engineer for the current equipment would select suitable backup equipment and a pilot run in the backup equipment. The process engineer for the backup equipment would construct the formal equipment recipe and the process controls implemented by the MES of the backup equipment. The process integration engineer for the backup equipment would prepare routing data in the MES of the backup equipment. Thus, the lot data can be accessed by the MES of the backup equipment, and would keep production data for that lot. Then the backup plan was announced to engineers and technicians. The technicians for both current equipment and backup equipment communicate before the manufacturing lot moves to the backup equipment.
The backup preparation steps are arduous and complicated to perform. The flow of backup preparations is complex. Queue time controls were not available to reduce the time in queue for the next process step.
Each time a process step is performed by a different production line, the production data is kept by the MES of that different production line. Thus multiple MESs exist with the fabrication of the same manufacturing lot. Advanced process controls can not be established for such multiple MESs. Further, the multiple MESs are independent data sources, which makes it difficult to track the current location of a manufacturing lot during its manufacture.
It is not a practical solution to merge the different MESs of different production lines to a single MES that would be for all the different production lines.